Drink To It
by ashestoashesanddusttodust
Summary: Desmond isn't very surprised to find out that Juno had lied about it being painless.
1. Chapter 1

**Drink To It  
**

**A Word**: I will never get tired of interactions that aren't totally AU with Desmond. Excuse me as I continue to spiral down into this again.

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Desmond wakes up even though it feels like he's been awake for a while. He's standing anyway and it's never been a good thing with him when he comes to on his feet with his eyes already open.

The Temple is dark and silent around him. No lights or noise penetrate it. There's the faint glow of the lights they'd hooked up to the generators outside the doors that are still open. It's enough for Desmond to see by as he turns and marvels over the fact that he doesn't hurt at all.

Desmond knows he's dead. Knows it because Juno hadn't shared her last harsh truth. The device to save the world didn't just require a life to free her, it also required one to act as sacrifice. Desmond closes his eyes and clenches his hands into fists. Remembering the way it felt like he was everywhere, that he was _everything_. The awe that had faded with agonizing pain as he burned. Waves of fire rolling over him before he could even comprehend what he'd become. The terrible knowledge of Juno's final price coming clear just before complete agony took him over.

Painless his ass.

He's dead now, there is no other possibility. Desmond is both surprised that there is an afterlife, and pissed that he's starting it in the last place he really wants to be. He got the information needed to save the world, made the choice everyone wanted him to make, and paid for it with his life. Desmond has done absolutely everything that everyone has ever wanted from him, everything he never really wanted to do. He's dead now, it's over. He's done with all of this shit.

Desmond walks out of the dark cavern, towards the light. Desmond chuckles softly at the thought.

The exterior area is the same as he last remembers it. Their gear scattered around the broken remains of the temple. Rebecca's sleeping bag with her four MP3 players and the soft gray shirt she wears to sleep in the closest to him as he comes off the bridge. He wonders if they got out before shaking his head because it's a stupid question and he can almost hear Shaun's scorn over it before something else catches his attention and wipes all other thoughts out of his mind.

Ezio is lounging on the comfortable seat of the Animus. His arms crossed under his head and the corner of his cloak tugged over his eyes. He's young looking now. Like he was shortly after his family's death. Face smooth and unlined except for the scar, a long tail of hair trails off the seat swaying slightly in the faint breeze coming from the entrance.

Desmond stares and doesn't really feel anything but a faint confusion. He's dead, but Desmond wonders if he's still going to be stuck with the hallucinations that had been getting worse the further into Ratonhnhaké:ton's memories. The stress of the normal Animus dives amped up by the approaching date and the heavy weight of being so damn close to his dad after so long of thinking he'd never see the man ever again.

Ezio's chest falls and rises slowly in a deep sleep, and he doesn't stir as Desmond wanders over. Hand outstretched because the best way to deal with the Bleed is with touch. The hallucinations can take over any other sensation, but being in his mind does not make them solid. Nothing dispelled them faster than watching his hand pass through apparitions that his mind tried to insist were really there.

Ezio grunts when Desmond's fingers poke into the soft, but solid, area under his right arm. He tenses before stretching out. Arms unfolding from under his head as he expands across the seat, bones popping audibly to Desmond before he relaxes and goes boneless with a content sigh. "This seat is small but so comfortable."

"Yeah?" Desmond says because he really doesn't have much else to say. He's dead and not hallucinating. Ezio really is here, which makes sense given the fact he's been dead for a lot longer than Desmond. "Try living in it for a day and see how comfortable it is then."

"Is that what you have done, Desmond?" Ezio chuckles as he brushes the cloth from his eyes and grins up at him. There's a double shock of his name coming from someone in the past -one he never got over despite how many times it happened while chasing Ezio's memories, and then there's the shock of the eyes peering up at him. They're hazel, a lighter brown from what Desmond had always assumed. The reflection of passing water or off the cold metal of a sword or knife not doing very much to do more than vaguely inform Desmond of Ezio's features. The images of the memories stored by the Animus were always from a distance that wasn't great on details. "I cannot think of much that would remain pleasant over that many hours."

"Yeah, well," Desmond looks away. Looks at the scattered tools and the dark computers. The messy pile of papers that Shaun had been obsessively combing through that last day. There's even a pile of wrappers, precisely folded into compact squares, next to Rebecca's station. Three empty boxes that had been full the last time he went under peek out from a boulder. Their own special ways of coping with stress. Desmond doesn't look over at the bank of computers used to communicate with people outside. He doesn't quite feel up to seeing any signs from there. "Not much choice really."

"Literally," Ezio is speaking English. His voice accented as he rolls off the seat and onto his feet. Boots tapping almost soundly as he settles the black robes he never had until gray started edging into his hair around him more comfortably. The robes don't look as oddly against the modern equipment as they should. "Going from what I have heard of you."

"What you've heard?" Desmond asks, but he's distracted by the fact that he's _taller_ than Ezio. By a few inches, but noticeable now that the man is on his feet. It doesn't seem right somehow.

"The dead speak, Desmond," Ezio says with a wry smile even as he walks to the left. Eyes flicking up and down. Taking in Desmond with something that he recognizes as avid curiosity. Desmond glances down and can see Ezio's right hand twitching slightly. The tic he'd noticed early on when Ezio wanted to snatch something. "Even the Templars. Though it takes a bit more force to get the information from them."

Ezio's smile says he doesn't mind that very much though and Desmond can't help the laugh. "And now I'm afraid what they've been saying about me."

"Oh, not much complimentary, I can assure you," Ezio says and moves quick, circling around behind Desmond before coming around his other side. His right hand moves out -without his conscious thought, from what Desmond knows of the man- and pulls at the strap of the bag Desmond still has though he doesn't think he wore it when releasing Juno. "Though you have made quite an impression on those not trying to kill you. The few that I could find anyway."

"You looked," Desmond frowns as Ezio continues to explore the bag. Seemingly fascinated by the zipper and velcro. "Why?"

"You do not know why?" Ezio asks and reaches for his left arm. Desmond lets him pick at the sleeve and push it up. He's not wearing the hidden blade that he _knows_ he had on when he died. In fact, he doesn't seem to have any of his weapons on him. Ezio examines the tattoo instead after a brief frown.

"I'm not a mind reader, no," Desmond says and wonders if he should be a little creeped out at his passivity here. Ezio is poking and prodding him. Literally, as he bats a stiff finger away from his jaw. Any other person would be eating his fist by now at being so familiar. Both from the creep factor of it and the innate paranoia that's only been enhanced since he woke up in Abstergo labs.

But Ezio is familiar to Desmond, as familiar as his own hands. Perhaps more familiar to him than anyone else. So much of his time had been spent reliving Ezio's memories that it was usually images of Italy and its people that invaded his waking days. It's a little weird to be touched by hands his mind wants to say are his own and not feel the expected sensation of touch.

"And yet, you have still been inside my mind," Ezio ignores his slapping hands and continues to examine him. He's smiling but his voice is serious. The seriousness that had only come with age, and there's a disconnect hearing it come from the young man before him.

"That wasn't mind reading," Desmond protests.

"Close enough, or are you saying you were not able to know my mind when you were living my life?" Ezio finally steps back and crosses his arms over his chest.

Desmond can't exactly deny that, because that had been the one thing that never truly transferred right. The memories and actions translated well into images, videos, but the emotions had always been something that only Desmond knew. That had always been the worst part of Animus diving. The way he'd been helpless against feeling what they all felt.

"But I didn't know what you were thinking," the mind and inner workings of Ezio had been faint as Desmond ran through his life. Never really able to control his actions completely, following a script that had happened so long ago, but only nominally aware of the thoughts and reasons why he was doing it. Even with the emotions to inform him, he'd never been a spectator to the man's actual thoughts. It's why the database had been so necessary, why he'd needed to be guided through some of the memories.

"No?" Ezio looks surprised at the admission and then a little wry. "Truly? Well, then I feel a little like an idiot now. Here I thought you were in my mind this whole time and hearing me when I spoke to you."

"Wait," Desmond frowns because as far as he knew, he was just a name to Ezio. One he'd been surprised the man had carried with him to the end of his life as an Assassin. He'd never thought of it beyond that though. Hadn't exactly had the time to. "You talked to me?"

"Yes, often," Ezio easily admits. "Maybe it's for the best you never heard though. Especially at the beginning. I was not very kind then."

He wouldn't have been. Desmond still remembers the emotions that had ripped through him when Minerva so casually dismissed the man and addressed Desmond. They'd melded with his own surprise when it seemed like the hologram looked right at him and said his name. Desmond remembers though, the smoldering anger that had made Ezio more brash in the memories that had stubbornly held him in the Animus after the Vault. Brief things that had given him all too brief insight into Ezio's mad scramble to leave. The memory important but corrupted after Minerva's message was delivered.

"In my mind, where I believed you to be, and so I did not seem completely insane," Ezio tapped his head lightly, and there's a bit of wistfulness in his tone. "It was helpful at times to think I was not alone."

The Brotherhood had been Ezio's pride. The sharp joy he had gotten as more and more joined his ranks. Taking the oaths and learning to live by the Creed under Ezio's tutelage. The man had never been happier than when he was surrounded by people. His mood tended to turn dark when he was alone, and left to his own thoughts that Desmond could never read beyond the emotions they elicited.

"Oh," Desmond jams his hands into the pocket of his hoodie. Because he can relate a bit. It'd always been hard on him. Traveling had been awesome, seeing new places and people. Learning things he'd never known before, and -after leaving the Farm- _everything_ had been new to him. It was the best years of his life spent going from one side of the country to the other. Slinging bottles around like the knives that had never felt right no matter how many times he'd been taught to handle the weapons. Listening to people's lives as he fed them a steady stream of cheap or pretentious -sometimes both- alcohol. Their triumphs and lows, their best stories and their worst. Entire life times related over a bar to Desmond who was just the faceless bartender to them. Ready with another beer and kind of shitty advise that usually did a good job at getting those down to smile again.

They were also the loneliest years of his life.

The Farm was small, but the families close. The people who came through for a day or two always friendly and warm to Desmond's curious questions. Always there and always willing to help out. The loss of that support, no matter how crazy he thought them all to be, had almost made Desmond turn around more than once. There was no way Desmond could build that network up for himself again out in the world. Not when he moved every month. Sometimes twice if he thought something was fishy. Running from his past and the ghosts of a threat that he really didn't believe existed but had been trained to well to fear to give up the paranoia of the Templars so easily.

Yeah, he can kinda see how it'd be nice to have someone in your head from that angle. It's crazy, but Desmond has been slowly losing his mind from the first time he opened his eyes on Jerusalem in the night. He's used to crazy by now. "So, what did you talk to me about, Ezio?"

"Many things," Ezio throws an arm around Desmond. Friendly and leading as he turns them towards the entrance. The source of the breeze. "Let's get a drink though, and maybe some food while I tell you. It will be nice to hear your response this time I think."

"Sure," Desmond could use a beer or a dozen. He's dead, he's essentially sacrificed himself for the world. He's allowed to get himself nice and drunk for that. Ezio's company will be a nice way to keep him from feeling lame over doing it alone. The older man tends to be fun when drinking and not worrying over death and killing. "Why the hell not? You know of any good places?"

"I know of a great many places," Ezio says with a laugh. "They are all open too and never short on the best drink and food either. You will enjoy being dead, Desmond."

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	2. Chapter 2

**Drink To It  
**

**A Word: **Ibid.

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Death is sweet to Ezio.

He closes his eyes old and aching with Sofia and Flavia smiling his last sight. He opens his eyes young and strong, no sign of that damnable cough that has plagued him for years. He also wakes up on the bench he'd sat down on with a handsome young man twirling a feather in his left hand. A familiar smile pulling unfamiliar lips up into something that nearly makes his heart break with joy. "Petruccio?"

"Welcome home, brother," the man laughs into his shoulder as Ezio draws him into a tight hug. His eyes burning as he marvels over this man that his little brother was never allowed to become in life. The one that he'd always been unable to imagine when his mind turned wistful and wondered what it would be like to have them all still beside him. "We have missed you, Ezio."

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Ezio dines with his family for lunch. His father presides over the table with his mother to his right. Both younger than he has ever seen them before, and smiling like he imagines they did when they first met. Federico is on the other side, a perfect image of the brother he missed so dearly. Claudia, radiant like she hadn't been in the years leading to her death, kicks him under the table while Petruccio smiles benignly at everyone.

It is one of the happiest moments in his life. No, Ezio muses as he drinks the sweet wine he'd never been able to find after leaving Florence, he is no longer alive. This is simply the happiest moment of his death, and it is only the beginning.

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"It is good to see you again," Leonardo says with a laugh. His hands are stained with paint, and there's a line of charcoal across his temple. He is young and vibrant like Ezio remembers from the first day he met the artist. His workshop is large and cluttered, as always, with more things than Ezio can begin to understand. "Come in! Sit down and tell me how you have been."

Ezio accepts the invitation and the glass of wine that Leonardo produces from _somewhere_. "Very little of interest happened to me after I last saw you," pale and so sickly it'd made him ache to see for the vibrancy that had still lurked in his cloudy eyes. Voice wistful as he voiced how much _more_ he wanted to do. "I would much rather hear about all of this. What more can you possibly do, Leonardo?"

"There is so much still left to learn!" Leonardo exclaims happily, and Ezio easily loses an afternoon listening to his friend talk about things that don't seem so fantastic now as they had in life.

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"I grew," Petruccio says as he draws a beautifully detailed sketch of a bird. Wings folded back in a dive, body streamlined, and talons out in preparation of snatching up its prey. "I was not sickly and I grew as normal."

Federico laughs, "Ah, and _how_ did he grow! You should have seen him Ezio. He shot up nearly overnight and did not know what to with himself for so long."

"Mamma says neither of you fared any better," Petruccio frowns in displeasure, but it smooths out quickly and he hardly looks up from his work detailing the feathers.

"Growing into a man spares no one," Ezio says with a chuckle and his mind strays to Marcello with a pang, because he will not be there to see that for his son. "It is a most indignant process."

"With incredible results, or so say the women," Federico says with a sly grin, and Ezio takes an immediate interest when the tips of Petruccio's ears turn red. "Our brother is quite the charmer, Ezio. You should see him go out on the streets. He hardly gets beyond the church before he has two or three pretty women trailing after him."

Petruccio turns a rather violent red and hunches over his paper. Focusing on the sketch but unable to hide the way his lips pout in a way that is familiar to Ezio. It's the one that had always gotten him to do the young boy's bidding no matter how little Ezio wanted to. It is, he is well aware, also the kind of expression that makes women coo and flutter around. "I see, the streets must be littered with broken hearts every time he returns home."

"There is nothing so special about it," Petruccio says and there's the hint of a whine to it that makes Federico laugh and Ezio smile. "I do not understand what is so interesting about women."

"Ah, you are still so stubborn," Federico says easily even as Ezio blinks at his youngest sibling, the words familiar to him. Federico reaches over the table to ruffle Petruccio's hair. "You will understand only if you let yourself have a little fun with those women. They are very pretty, are they not?"

Petruccio says nothing only staying sullenly silent as Federico goes on about a few women who have their eyes on the young man. Ezio sits silently and simply waits it out. Federico inevitably leaves to make a meeting with one of his many women leaving them alone.

It is a tricky thing, a matter that carried so much consequences with it in life, but they are all dead now. Ezio sees even less of a wrong with it than he did in life, and he hadn't thought much of the laws when he was alive to begin with.

"If not women," Ezio starts when he is sure they are alone, and feels justified in his thoughts when Petruccio goes stiff at the words, "then perhaps it is that you find interest elsewhere?"

Petruccio goes still in a way that Ezio hasn't seen in all too long, and Ezio moves without giving it conscious thought. Leaning into the space that separates them and drawing the man whom he still sees as a boy into a tight hug. The only response Ezio is capable of when Petruccio is _scared_.

"It does not matter to me. You are still my little brother and I love you," Ezio says the words fiercely and means them like little else he has said before. "Federico will say the same if you only tell him. He loves women and no other option occurs to him because he simply does not know it. Not because he thinks it wrong."

"The laws," Petruccio mutters, his eyes wide but not as scared looking as before when Ezio pulls back to smile at him.

"We are a family of Assassins," Ezio says with a laugh. "Our Creed tells us nothing is true and everything is permitted. What do you think we care about _laws_? Especially ones that are so very wrong."

The shy smile Petruccio gives him is worth the time he knows he's going to spend panicking and seeking answers over this later.

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Leonardo laughs. Deep and from the belly, his face turning almost purple from lack of air. Normally it would be enough to pull even a small laugh from Ezio, no matter how grim he might feel, but normally he isn't trying to _strangle_ Salai's silver tongue to silence.

"You will not touch my little brother!" Ezio hisses to the man who has taken on a much younger face than Ezio last saw him with. His prettier years, the boy had quipped before uttering the words that had made him see red. "So help me, God, if I find you've even spoken to him I will find a way to end you!"

Salai is good for Leonardo. A brat who pushes beyond all boundaries of politeness, which is often the only way to make the older man break out of the world inside his head. His capricious nature more than a match for Leonardo's lightning fast mind, and occasional dark moods.

"I thought all older brothers want their younger one to become men," Salai gasps as he breaks free and spins around a paper laden desk. Eyes wicked and flashing with a challenge that Ezio is going to have to actively look to stop now. Damn him for simply blurting out his thoughts without first assuring only Leonardo was in the workshop. "I think you would be _happy_ for me to take your brother to bed. Does he have the same pretty lips as yo-"

Ezio leaps over the desk, catches the punch, and gets his other hand around Salai's neck again. The desk shudders and jumps as they fall to the floor, and Salai tries to throw him off. A large book glances off his head, but Ezio is not distracted by the bright spot of pain as he growls a promise to the brat, "Try it and you will only _wish_ you were alive so you could die again!"

Leonardo _laughs_.

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Monteriggioni is more alive and filled than Ezio remembers it being even before Borgia's attack.

"Assassins of all ages come here now," Mario says from his perch on the wall next to Ezio. His voice every bit as deep as Ezio remembers it being as they look on over the bustling city. He with two working eyes that Ezio still starts over seeing. "From far to see what has been done with the Order, and from the past to see how it has been restored."

Ezio feels only a little wistful over seeing what he had always wanted continuing even in death, and long after he had left the Brotherhood in life. Some of the forms he watches are familiar to him. Assassins he recruited as Novices, training them in the ways of the Order, and sending them on missions they did not come back from. Many are not familiar to him at all though.

"Come," his Uncle's hand is heavy and friendly on his shoulder as he urges him forward. Toward the city he has only reluctantly visited at Claudia's insistence. "There are many who would like to meet you, and many more who would like to see you again, _Mentor_."

Ezio opens his mouth to protest but the words are stolen by wind when the older man _shoves_ him off the wall. Ezio moves instinctively, his body well trained by a life time that not even a decade of avoidance could destroy. It awakens a hunger in him that Ezio has not felt in a while. He laughs as he rolls to his feet. Hay stuck through his hair, and a few Brothers already turning to him with welcoming smiles.

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There is a strange order to the afterlife and Ezio takes it in slowly.

"Anyone can do what they wish," his father says as he walks Ezio through streets both familiar and not at the same time. They stretch further than he is used to, blurring and collapsing together when they both do not focus on exploration. They're walking backwards in time, looking at the street through the years. It takes effort, though he's been assured it becomes easier once he's actually been to a time period. "Within reason, of course. There are still consequences for the darker things. Less permanent perhaps, but still consequences."

Ezio pauses and they both watch a vendor displaying his wares to the street. A man unremarkable in every way except for his eyes which are a cloudy white that sees nothing and everything.

The Souless. It has taken Ezio a while to become used to them. He thinks of them as beings still though he knows most consider them simple constructs. They exist solely to do a job or provide a service. They do nothing else, feel nothing else, and simply vanish when not needed.

They remind him of the light form of Minerva, and the eeriness has not faded yet.

"If that is so true, then why do you still work with the bank?" Ezio asks as they walk again. His mind struggling to hold the thread of their conversation as well as the exploration.

"Habit," the older man says and points out another vendor to Ezio. A man, a real one this time, calling out his wares to the people passing his stall. "Boredom as well. There's only so much lazing about one can do before going mad, Ezio. Though your brother, Federico, is determined to prove me wrong in that matter."

Ezio laughs, loud and startled, and the street blurs around him.

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Cristina is as beautiful and elegant as he remembers her being. Even in the layers of her skirts and the long plumage of the feathered mask she wears. Her fingers are light in his hand and against his shoulder as they spin in the midst of the eternal Carnevale. It aches a little to feel her like this again, but not as much as it aches to know he does not feel the same things he felt so very long ago.

The sweet pain in his heart that was his innocent love is still there, but his mind is too old and jaded to think it is as important as it was before. He lived a long life and Ezio knows that some things are actually more important than the way his chest warms in her company.

"I do still regret it," Cristina says, soft and almost unheard below the music and cheer around them. "But it has been a long time, Ezio. I have found much that I do not regret."

"As have I," Ezio smiles under his mask and twirls them to a stop as he admits the truth that has become apparent to him. He loves her, still, but he cannot imagine being with her as they both are now. Not for more than the time of a dance. "One last kiss then?"

"You have to ask?" Cristina smiles and her lips are as sweet and soft as he remembers them being.

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It is Claudia who brings it up to him. Perhaps she is the only one to think of it because she is the only one who has met Sofia.

"How does it work though?" Ezio asks as he walks the streets of Rome with Claudia.

"It does," Claudia says as she watches the people around them. Eyes sharp and suspicious in a way that she had learned shortly after leaving Florence. "I love them both, and they love me. Francesco and Giulio understand that they are both equally as important to me."

It does not seem like it should work to Ezio. Francesco had been a kind man before his death in the siege of Monteriggioni, but had been prone to jealousy. A trait that Claudia had often exploited for her own amusement as the man was prone to sulking fits and not violence in his jealousy.

"Francesco never expected me to remain unmarried, brother," Claudia explains as if reading his mind. A smile curling her lips up in a way that he knows is her laughing at him. "Nor to waste away over my love for him. He knew that in life."

Like mother, the thought is unspoken but resounds between them. They had both spent so many years watching her carry on after the execution. Strong but with an air of fragility that had born out when she caught the illness that had ended her life. Her expression rapt on her death bed as she told them how she was going to see their father.

Their love had been pure and strong. Neither one moving on, just patiently waiting for them to be reunited again. No consideration at all given to loving anyone else. Ezio and Claudia saw it with their mother in life, and Federico has told them it was the same for their father in death.

"Do you ever want that?" Ezio asks eventually.

"Sometimes, I think about it," Claudia admits and her voice is soft and thoughtful as they pause near a fountain. "But I do not think my heart would be able to bear the pain of it. No, I am content with the love I have with Francesco and Giulio."

Sofia is young, his children are young. Ezio wonders how he feels over the thought of Sofia marrying again, and another man raising his children. He does not know how to feel about it at all.

"Seriously," Ezio turns from the fountain to his sister. "How does it work? Do you have an appointment book for which night you will sleep wi- Ow! Stop, Claudia! It's only a question!"

Claudia doesn't stop hitting or cursing his name until the people around them start to blatantly stare, and she only stops then to turn her sharp tongue on the crowd. Which gives Ezio all the chance he needs to slip away.

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Sofia _is_ young still. Brilliant and caring and a host of other things that Ezio finds he does not want her to waste on the memory of him when she has so much life left to live.

Marcello is young too, and Ezio knows -with a pang of pain he can't help- that the boy will easily look to Sofia's next love as a father. Flavia will not though, she is as caring as her mother but her age means she will still remember him well. Ezio accepts it as inevitable.

No, he gets _drunk_ first, and _then_ he accepts it.

He accepts it as he deals with the consequences of overindulging -"Illnesses do not exist here," Leonardo had shrugged, disappointed he had one less thing to study, "Except for that which is self-inflicted."- that Sofia will move on. Will marry again and have more children.

He loves her still, but the memory of Cristina darts around the edges of his mind. The feeling of his first love and the knowledge that he is that for Sofia. Her first love that she had pushed for. Ezio had admired the woman when he met her. Her beauty and her mind equal, but not worth the danger she would come to with closer association.

He remembers the picnic she had insisted on when he tried drawing away from her. Her smile and laugh as his purpose floated away from his mind for a few precious moments. He misses that. Her smile and the sound of her voice. The way she would bring books to bed because she could not bear to put them down before she absolutely had to. Though he does not miss her habit of warming her cold feet on him in the middle of the night.

It is not the love he has for Caterina, and it is also not the love his mother and father share. It is, as Claudia says, enough to be content with though, and Ezio resigns himself to figuring out the particulars of how it will work out in the future.

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It is a marvel how Ezio runs into people he knows, and those who would like to know him. He wanders freely now, searching for something he isn't truly aware of, and encounters only friends and allies.

"I do not pretend to understand it," Federico admits as they watch a sunset from on high. A bottle of wine open and passed between them. Cheap wine that fits with their mood. "You will not accidentally find an enemy though. You have to actively be looking for them, and they you. Or they must be hiding from you. There is intent and action too," Federico twirls the bottle and the wine splashes up the side of it. Only a little left between them. "It's complicated. Almost a literal interpretation of do unto others. If you don't look they can't find you. If you do no harm they can't find you. Look or do harm and they will be able to find you."

"Not easily, I hope," Ezio says as he thinks of Borgia and his son. Of all the Templars he's hunted down, and all the enemies he's dispatched in his life. Some he thinks he would still like to have words with, but not if that means they will always be able to find him.

"No, they would still have to actually hunt you down," Federico offers the last swallow to him and Ezio graciously takes it. "It makes things more orderly and peaceful, but, make no mistake brother, war still happens."

"Especially after you've fallen asleep in your lover's bed and her husband finds you there," Ezio says with a smirk as the last of the sun's light dies. Florence stretches out below them for an almost endless distance and his legs twitch with the desire to run in all.

"That strife is eternal," Federico says with a solemn voice that doesn't match his grin at all. He turns and steps to the edge of the roof, crouching down in preparation of jumping. No doubt taken with the same desire to run as Ezio. "Up for a little race?"

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Masyaf is different with the presence of Assassins to fill it. No longer an abandoned city inhabited by those who did not give proper respect for those that had come before. Ezio reflects on how similar it is to how he felt about Monteriggioni. He suspects it is a beacon far beyond his city though. It is the birthplace of the Order, or the parts that matter at least.

"He comes and goes," the gruff man named Malik says. His English is even more thickly accented than Ezio's. They had been perfectly fine speaking in French before the man had requested they switch languages. Practicing a lesser used tongue in expectation of needing to use it more in the future. A prediction that Ezio doesn't question. "Mostly he goes. Further and further into the past, always bringing answers and such things back with him."

Malik is a mystery to Ezio for all that his name came up often in Altair's writings. The images in Altair's memories of a worn, one-armed prisoner could not be further from the man before him now. He is a close friend to the man, and that has been the extent of Ezio's knowledge until now.

Smoke winds up into the air between them from an incense burner. The smell is heady and rich as Ezio drinks cool water that tastes as sweet as any wine in the heat of the land. His robes are heavy against him even without the armor he'd forgone in deference of the man he'd hoped to meet. The black cloth still welcoming even after all this time of not wearing it. "Are there so many questions to be asked about the past?"

"Yes," Malik says solemnly. His robes are black as well, unornamented but commanding all the same, despite the duration of his leadership being so short according to him. "You should know that _Prophet_, or are you here to say you know all there is to know?"

The ghosts of beings not human and the power of their artifacts cross his mind, and Ezio inclines his head in acceptance of this. The specter of a ghost that Ezio only knows by name lays heavy on his mind still despite the fact he has not thought of him since his death. "It's to the future, though, that all of their efforts are going to."

"Well, then," Malik smirks at him, and a few throw away lines about Malik's temper and tongue come back to Ezio then because there is nothing kind or nice in that look. "It seems like a problem that is best dealt with by someone from the future, doesn't it?"

Ezio frowns, but before he can protest he's being clapped on the shoulder. Malik's smile is sharp and calculated, and he fears for a moment the day that Niccolò comes calling to the afterlife and meets this man. "I will tell Altair when I see him again. He will undoubtedly search you out to find out what you know then."

.

.

"What a wonderful idea!" Leonardo enthuses and Ezio spends a day listening to the man go on about what the future might possibly hold. Mostly, in regards to inventions.

The idea turns over in his mind. At turns a horrible idea he wants nothing to do with, and one of the best ideas he's had in a while at others.

The name he almost forgot floats in the back of his mind. A question he never thought he'd get an answer to no matter how much he silently begged for one. Begged for answers from a specter he had never been entirely sure he was not crazy for speaking to as the years went by, but unable to stop himself from doing so anyway.

"But what do you hope to gain my friend?" Leonardo eventually asks after going off for a while about something to do with time that Ezio hadn't followed at all. "What are you looking for from the future?"

"A person," Ezio says and the idea solidifies away from speculation and into something he's going to do. "I need to find a man."

.

.

Federico laughs at him until Ezio feels the need to shut him up with a fist. It's a brief, dirty fight after that, and even though Ezio is left with a bloody lip he's smug in the knowledge that he's able to best his brother. "Age has nothing over experience, brother."

"I think I miss the days when you were more likely to break your own thumb throwing a punch," Federico says as he pinches his nose shut until the bleeding slows. He's grinning though because he's a horrible liar. "Father will be pleased though. It's worried him that you've stayed out of the Order's business."

And infuriated Claudia no doubt. She never had truly forgiven him for leaving the Brotherhood so abruptly and completely. She had never left. Had continued to work with them up to her last breath.

"Perhaps you needed the break," Federico says and Ezio grunts as a heavy arm is draped over his shoulder. His brother putting all his weight down on him to make him stumble. "Even legendary Mentors must take a break after all."

Ezio nearly throws Federico off and into a wall. The sharp click of shoes stops him, as they both freeze. Familiar with the sound of their mother's shoes and even more familiar with her dislike of finding either of them dirty and bloody. Ezio nearly breaks his neck scrambling with Federico for the nearest open window to escape.

.

.

Salai finds Ezio in his vineyard.

"And what is it you want?" Ezio finally asks when he can no longer stand the boy poking about and making a nuisance of himself.

"So unfriendly," Salai complains as he eats straight from his cupboards in the kitchen. Ezio finds himself annoyed over the act even though the food itself never seems to run out. "Anyone listening to you would think we are not friends!"

"Good," Ezio reaches over the boy and snags a round loaf of bread and a bit of cheese before he can touch it. He slouches on the table Sofia had insisted they needed to bring all the way from one of her trips to Rome and begins to slice them both. "Now what are you after?"

"Leonardo," Salai says and that is enough to gain Ezio's full attention. For all the boy's faults and annoyances, he has always been fond of the man. Ezio listens then when Salai brings his friend up in conversation with an expression approaching seriousness.

"Go on," Ezio prompts as he crosses his arms over his chest to give the boy his full attention.

"Your talk about the future has made him curious," Salai says with a snort and Ezio smiles, because they both know that was only a matter of time for Leonardo. "He is making plans to leave his workshop and travel forward with time."

"Oh?" Ezio sighs but is not surprised in the least. The man would never truly be content with working on the ideas he already has until they are finished. Not when he has such a handy distraction. "Good for him, then. Maybe he will find something to occupy that busy mind of his."

Salai stomps his foot and glares at him like the sullen child he is. "Leonardo is _leaving_ me, and it is _your_ fault, Assassin!"

It's not an unfounded accusation, but Ezio arches one eyebrow at the boy. "And you think he would not have thought of this on his own eventually?"

All it would take was one visit from a person decades beyond their time -forward or backward- to make Leonardo think of it.

"It's _your_ fault," Salai insists, not bothering to acknowledge the point as usual when he has something he has decided to hold onto. "And since it is your fault you will be accompanying him to keep him safe. You know how he is!"

"He is a grown man. He survived just fine on his own long before he met me," Ezio says just to see the ways Salai bristles. If Leonardo will travel with him then Ezio will protect his friend. That is not something that should even be questioned, and Salai should know it. "Is that all?"

"No," Salai crosses his arms over his chest, and his curly hair bounces a bit as he tries to look severe. Failing only because Ezio has seen Leonardo adopt that exact same pose on the boy when he got into some sort of mischief. "I also expect you to keep anyone from getting their hands on _my_ Leonardo. He is mine and they cannot have him."

Ezio feels his other eyebrow raise, without his leave, and it only makes Salai snarl more.

"I will not leave, and cannot be beside him to run them off. So that is now your job," the boy says and he's almost growling jealously with each word. "Do you think you can accomplish this little thing?"

"Of course," Ezio replies and keeps a perfectly blank face on until the boy leaves.

.

.

"Why did you let me drink that much?" Leonardo groans when he finds Ezio in the morning. Tucked into a rather cleaner kitchen than he remembers this particular brothel having, and eating a light fare of bread with oil.

Leonardo is a sight to see. Suffering the aftereffects of too much drink and looking absolutely debauched in the wrinkled clothing he wore the night before when Ezio dragged him out of his workshop. Paola had obviously made very good on her word to arrange appropriate entertainment for the man despite the short notice.

"Come now," Ezio kicks out a stool for the man and pours some water from a pitcher for him to drink. His own clothes are equally ruined and his back stings with each shift of his arms. The woman had been no courtesan, but her enthusiasm had been worth it. Paola's ranks have only increased in death, with people going to her with a different kind of request that the woman has been more than willing to accommodate. "It was well worth it, yes? Tell me you did not enjoy yourself last night and I will give you my sincerest apologies."

Leonardo groans but says nothing, and Ezio takes it as victory with a grin. He grins wider when he catches sight of the discoloration below Leonardo's jaw that looks like it might darken into a wonderful bruise that won't be hidden.

"And what has you so very happy, Ezio?" Leonardo is in a foul mood. The drink taking its toll heavily. He will brighten up again after a few more glasses of water, but for the moment he's sour about everything.

"The future," Ezio responds as he refills his own glass, not minding his friend's mood one bit as he holds his glass up in a toast Leonardo ignores.

.

.


End file.
